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Thursday, May 26, 2011

I thought I'd take a break from some of the tactical writing to post pictures of my latest two squads. The first is an Assault squad made by combining standard Assault squad and Death Company parts. The squad is painted as the 4th squad of the 8th Company, as I've already painted both Assault squads from my 4th Company. I'm trying to keep the squad markings accurate, no matter how little sense codex organization makes with our current army list. The sergeant's arms are magnetized so he can switch out weapons.

Monday, May 23, 2011

I was asked for some help building a 1,750 point list for a tournament. The list is supposed to be a DoA list, but is restricted because his area doesn’t allow squads to combat squad when they enter from reserve (a very harsh reading of the current BA FAQ). He has the following models.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

When playing a Descent of Angels army, the first decision you have to make is whether to deploy normally or deep strike. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and should be used in certain circumstances.

The biggest advantage of regular deployment is its reliability. You know that you’ll have all of your units from the beginning of the game, with no chance of any squads staying off the field until the fifth turn. You also have the advantage of being able to place your squads exactly where you want, within the confines of your deployment zone. This is the biggest downside to deploying normally: it forces you to cross the table at normal speed. Even for jump packers, this can leave you vulnerable to lots of enemy firepower.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

While it is entirely possible to make an all jump packer army, it does have some weaknesses that are better filled by other units. Its main problem is a lack of long range fire. In my experience, this leads to three problems.

Friday, May 6, 2011

A strict Descent of Angels army has a fairly limited choice of units that it can take. These units have some difficulty fulfilling all the roles found in a balanced army, but they compensate by reliably arriving from reserves and precision deep striking. Once they arrive, they maintain impressive mobility. What follows is a short discussion of the units that you can take in an all Descent of Angels army and what roles they fill.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Holding objectives is vital in two-thirds of games. This must be done by a Troops squad (or in some cases, other squads that gain Scoring status due to some special rule). I generally classify objectives as either backfield or forward objectives.

Backfield objectives are those within your deployment zone or very near it.H This makes them easy to take control of early in the game, and allows you to quickly establish a defensible firebase to guard the objective. This works best when you have Troops with long-ranged weapons, allowing them to remain in the backfield and still damage the enemy.

Forward objectives are generally anything in your opponent’s half of the table. They’re too far from your deployment zone for you to easily move firepower units to them, and they would lose too much firepower trekking across the battlefield. Forward objectives are best taken by fast moving units, generally assault-oriented ones. You’ll often have to clear enemy units from them, so having some assault hitting power helps.

Monday, May 2, 2011

While transports aren’t high priority targets in and of themselves, they provide a massive bonus to squads riding in them. Transports increase the mobility of a squad as well as protecting them from anti-infantry firepower. Therefore, they both help the squad fulfill its objectives and prevent you from damaging the squad. This makes transports much higher priority than their points cost and armament warrants.

While lascannons and missile launchers have difficulty destroying heavy tanks, they reliably penetrate most transports. The first priority of any unit carrying this type of firepower should be to destroy enemy transports, robbing their units of mobility and leaving them vulnerable to your anti-infantry firepower and assault. These weapons are much more desirable than destroying transports using short ranged firepower or in assault. Either of these will leave your squad near the disembarked enemy unit, vulnerable to rapid fire or counter-assault. Use your long range weapons to destroy the transports, then move in to assault their contents.